Review by Win Wiacek
This final hardback Archive of Hal Jordan’s doings as Green Lantern picks up in late 1966 and ends as 1967 closes. Gardner Fox writes the opening and closing stories, plus one other, with everything else from the imagination of John Broome. Everything is pencilled by Gil Kane. You might think he couldn’t top the energetic dynamism seen in Volume 6, but he does.
Bizarrely garbed goodies and baddies increasingly became common currency at DC during the Batmania generated from the 1966 TV show, so when gold-plated mad scientist Keith Kenyon returned it was as a dyed-in-the-wool costumed crazy in ‘Goldface’s Grudge Fight Against Green Lantern!’ Broome’s showbiz scoundrel Dazzler didn’t quite set the world afire in ‘The Spectacular Robberies of TV’s Master Villain!’ The story is still a shocker as Hal Jordan quits his job as a Coast City test Pilot and went on the first of his vagabond quests across America.
With ‘The Quest for the Wicked Queen of Hearts!’ Kane began inking his pencils, lending the proceedings a raw, savage appeal. The fight content was also ramped up in this murder-mystery treasure hunt. It’s complimented by an extragalactic smack-fest in Fox’s ‘Thraxton the Powerful vs Green Lantern the Powerless’ before the Emerald Crusader returns to the 58th century to battle ‘Green Lantern’s Evil Alter Ego!’.
Alan Scott and comedy sidekick Doiby Dickles pop over from Earth 2 to aid against the return of arch nemesis Sinestro in the frankly peculiar ‘Our Mastermind, the Car!’ in which Dickles’ old taxi cab becomes a gang leader (see sample art). By contrast, ‘Captive of the Evil Eye!’ features a far less outré or memorable plot, whilst artists Carmine Infantino illustrates the thrillingly comedic ‘Two Green Lanterns in the Family!’ as Hal takes a job as an investigator for the Evergreen Insurance company.
The positively surreal, super-scientific ‘Menace in the Iron Lung!’ follows, with a villain separating Hal and Green Lantern into two separate people. It’s followed by a two part extravaganza featuring an all-out attack on the Guardians of the Universe in ‘Cosmic Enemy Number One’, concluding with ‘The Green Lanterns’ Fight for Survival!’ and the appointment of a second human to the Green Lantern Corps.
Fox closes the collection with a sparkling superhero duel in ‘The Catastrophic Weapons of Major Disaster!’, in which the crook exploits knowing Hal is Green Lantern.
This collection gathers the imaginative and creative peak of Broome, Fox and Kane, a plot driven plethora of adventure sagas and masterful thrillers. Action lovers and fans of fantasy fiction couldn’t find a better example of everything that defines 1960s superhero comics.
These stories are also available in black and white in Showcase Presents Green Lantern Vol. 3., or on slightly larger colour pages in the second Green Lantern: The Silver Age Omnibus.
